The report measures service quality across six categories: call, data, text, reliability, speed and overall. While T-Mobile and Sprint have made strides in the past year, they still have a long way to go. Verizon won every category except for texting reliability, which it narrowly lost to AT&T.

T-Mobile made the biggest improvement in the past year. In the second half of 2013, T-Mobile had wins or ties in 60 markets. During the first half of 2014, that total had grown to 169.

Sprint’s gains were much smaller. In the second half of 2013, Sprint tied in 13 markets. In the first half of 2014, it tied in 27. The carrier had no wins in either period.

Verizon, by comparison, had 542 wins or ties. The country’s biggest wireless carrier by customers retook the crown from AT&T on data speed, which AT&T held in 2013.

The report also looked at competition on a state-by-state basis, which can be important given the strengths and weaknesses of each network in different regions. Here’s how many states each network either won or tied in each category–Verizon in red, AT&T in blue, Sprint in yellow and T-Mobile in pink:

Root Metrics

Network quality isn’t the area only where AT&T and Verizon have an advantage. The carriers have more than two thirds of the nation’s lucrative postpaid subscribers, and in 2013 each company collected more than twice as much revenue in 2013 than Sprint and T-Mobile combined.

Here’s how the numbers break down by network:

Number of postpaid subscribers, as of June 30 (data via the companies):
Verizon: 95.6 million
AT&T: 74.3 million
Sprint: 30.2 million
T-Mobile: 24.5 million

Comments (4 of 4)

With t-mobile, I couldn't even get reception in some major cities when I needed it. The last straw was when I was outside of the baggage claim area of baltimore international airport and couldn't get any reception. Even though I had 3 weeks left on my plan monthly plan, I immediately switched to at&t. AT&T had zero issues.

12:07 am August 21, 2014

Conrad wrote:

It's all bull. For the outrageous prices Verizon and AT&T charge to help pay for their hundreds of lobbyists to help ensure a perfect duopoly, I'd rather go with another carrier.

11:43 pm August 20, 2014

Doon Valley wrote:

I won't buy this report card, according to this no customer should have moved to Sprint or T-Mobile, even AT&T should have been in trouble, VZ should have been kicking ass!.
There is something wrong at fundamental level in this report.

6:55 pm August 20, 2014

JermaineWilliams wrote:

The biggest thing of course, and few want to admit it, is that speed is relative to the website your visiting.

When this report was made available, I thought "Hmm, this can't be correct". So, I ran a competing app on my iPhone called "SpeedTest.Net" SpeedTest is more accurate, because it's not centralized to one website on the entire internet.

Because RootMetrics is more centralized, by design, there will be bottlenecks in speed, which need additional fiber optics.

So in my test, I used RootMetrics app at the same location as SpeedTest, I received very different scores. Speed Test reported 47.3Meg Speed; Root Metrics reported 14 Meg speed.

I didn't change any phone settings; and sat the phone down in the same place. So the only thing I can reconcile is the fact that RootMetrics's quality control service is likely hosted on the internet by Verizon; or Verizon ensures a better score by connecting to companies that can issue a PR award first.

Now, if Verizon had the same kind of quality connections for NetFlix to all it's customers, then Verizon may win an award for ethics. Also, because Verizon's rates are setup so customers can't use the very expensive service, the speeds will always be greater.